The present invention relates generally to improved means and methods for automatically recognizing data on documents, and more specifically to improved means and methods for automatically recognizing amount information on financial documents, such as checks, invoices and remittance documents.
Today's financial services industry is facing the immense challenge of processing huge amounts of documents efficiently. Predictions that document payment methods would decline have not been realized. In fact, document payment methods have grown worldwide and are expected to continue increasing. There is thus a vital need to devise improved methods for processing such documents.
The use of imaging technology as an aid to document processing has been recognized as one way of significantly improving document processing, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,205,780; 4,264,808; 4,672,186; and 4,888,812. Generally, imaging involves optically scanning documents to produce electronic images that are processed electronically and stored on high capacity storage media (such as magnetic disc drives and/or optical memory) for later retrieval and display. It is apparent that document imaging provides the opportunity to reduce document handling and movement, since these electronic images can be used in place of the actual document. For example, document images can be retrieved from storage and displayed on workstation where operators can enter amount data and other information based on the observed images, instead of having to view the documents directly.
Although the use of imaging in a document processing system can provide significant improvements, the need for operator viewing and entry of data from the documents continues to limit the attainable document processing speed and efficiency.